With the launch of Intel’s Haswell there was the normal shift to a new chipset. This is Intel’s Z87 chipset and everyone rushed to get their version of this new chipset out onto the market. Many of the boards that reached consumers were just rehashes of boards that were already on the market with the Z77 chipset, but with the bonus of improved performance under Haswell. So with that in mind we have Asus’ Z87-Expert up on the test bench to see just how it stacks up to the older Z77 boards running Ivy Bridge. Let’s dive in.
The Box and Goodies -Asus’ mainstream product line comes in a fairly nice looking box and like many other products on the market the box is intended to draw consumers in. In the upper right hand corner we find a few interesting badges including one letting us know that the Z87-Expert supports Intel’s Thunderbolt connection. Down along the bottom we find a list of much more Asus specific features.
The back has more marketing information intended to get you to drop the Z87-Expert into your cart. There are two very interesting items on the back though. One is the Dual Intelligent Processors version 4 and the other is Thunderbolt. The rest is window dressing; there is even a QRC on the back if you want more information.
Inside the box is rather typical fare with the exception of the wireless antenna. This antenna is very different than the normal ones you see out there, although we do not know how well it will perform in practice.
